New Vegas of the Dead
by RagnartheSemiGreen
Summary: While clearing the ghouls from the REPCONN test site, the Courier is surprised by the sudden and unexpected arrival of a collection of heavily armed high school students, who are about to be plunged into a completely different post-apocalypse. Rated M for character death, violence, and other forms of human misery. Also, foul language.
1. Chapter 1: Min

**AN: This crossover fiction uses setting and characters from **_**Fallout: New Vegas**_**, and characters from **_**High School of the Dead**_**. I make no claims to either, and encourage everybody to go and consume these products!**

Name: Min

Level/Karma: "Desert Avenger"

Strength: 6

Perception: 5

Endurance: 4

Charisma: 8

Intelligence: 6

Agility: 8

Luck: 5

Traits: Small Frame, Trigger Discipline

Perks: Cherchez la Femme, Rapid Reload, Hunter, Commando, Animal Control, Camel of the Mojave

Skills:

Barter: 30

Energy Weapons: 15

Explosives: 25

Guns: 50 (tag)

Lockpick: 30 (tag)

Medicine: 25

Melee Weapons: 35

Repair: 35

Science: 17

Sneak: 25

Speech: 50 (tag)

Survival: 35

Unarmed: 13

Min was having a bad day, which was steadily getting worse.

"…Trade a favor for a favor?" Manny Vargas had information that was vital to her revenge, but was playing coy.

"What favor do you want?" Min took a closer look at the ex-NCR soldier. "If it involves sex, count me out."

Manny snickered at that, making the growing headache beating within Min's skull pulse.

"Don't worry about it, my newest friend! It's nothing demeaning; I just want to help this town. I've lived many places in my life, and now that I've found a good home here, I want to help Novac."

The Courier nodded. It was an understandable and worthy desire.

"Now I know this town doesn't look like much, and to be brutally honest, it really isn't much. But until recently, we had a good source of income, in the form of salvage from the old REPCONN test site west of here. Lately, we've had a ghoul problem. The ghouls are preventing our prospectors from accessing materials we need. If you go and clear out the ghouls, I'll tell you everything I know."

A line creased Min's pale brow. "Let me get this straight: You will, in exchange for the removal of an entire population of ghouls from a massive, possibly irradiated test site, give me information of dubious quality?"

Manny's lips quirked up in a faint smile. "It sounds kind of unfair when you put it that way. Tell you what, in exchange for removing the ghouls you get five hundred caps, a five percent discount at Cliff's Store, and the information. Deal?"

The Courier thought for a moment. While five hundred caps wouldn't make her rich, it was nothing to be sneezed at. The discount would be helpful when she would inevitably need to replenish her ammunition supply, and the information was probably vital for the fulfillment of her revenge.

"It's a deal. I'll start immediately."

"Good luck and happy hunting. Try to make it back in one piece."

And so, less than two hours after the Courier had entered Novac, she left, mildly tipsy after a quick meal and whiskey break, and with enough .357 ammunition to slay an army of ghouls jangling in her heavy backpack. Her hatchet dug into her side as she walked, and the cowboy repeater that hung over her shoulder ground into the bone. The town shrank in her sight as she walked, until gradually even the giant dinosaur sniper nest faded from view.

The walk westward was quiet, with the noonday heat beating down on the ancient asphalt reducing the number of animals out and about. A coyote growled at the wearied woman as she trudged by, only to recoil in surprise as she bared her teeth right back. The oppressive heat and dust only thickened the sweltering air, and when the road was blocked by a congested check point, Min could only collapse in relief into the shade offered by the ancient guard booth. Removing the battered cowboy hat from her head, the Courier rested for a few minutes against the slowly decaying concrete, before standing and resuming her journey.

As the Courier turned the last corner, a loud moan echoed from the cliffs, and a rhythm of slamming feet began. With a sigh, she shouldered her repeater as the first ghoul came rushing towards her.

"Just once," she muttered, chambering another .357 shell as the onrushing ghoul collapsed, two new holes in his torso oozing "I'd like to show up at a place that didn't try to kill me immediately!" As if to punctuate her sentence, a second ghoul wailed as a third shot took it in the shoulder, followed by two more to the abdomen.

Shouldering her smoking rifle, Min approached the slumped bodies of the ghouls. Kneeling beside the first ghoul, which lay flat on its back, staring up at the blue sky, her practiced hands ruffled through the decayed pouches and the pockets of its ragged trousers. Finding only a single bottle cap, quickly pocketed, the Courier gently closed the cracked and yellowed eyes and whispered a quick prayer. "Deep sleep; and a better life next time."

Moving on to the second ghoul, Min quickly searched the body, and sealed the irradiated ex-human's glassy orbs. She stood, and winced slightly as her spine cracked. For a moment, as the Courier looked down upon the two ghouls, symbols of the growing decay of the radioactive post-War world, a cold wind seemed to blow through her soul. The unrelenting heat of the sun brought her back from her morbid reflection on the wasteland, and hastened her steps as Min crossed the cracked asphalt in front of the main structure. Ducking and weaving from debris to wall, cover to cover, hiding from any lurking assailants, Min carefully moved across the outer portion of the site, and climbed the stairs that led towards the main entrance. Her stealthy movements had prevented the two ghouls who lurched around the entrance from noting her; with sadness in her heart for whom the ghouls had once been, Min ended their miserable existences.

"Deep sleep; and a better life next time."

"Deep sleep; and a better life next time."

Gently pushing the rusting door open, and wincing at the loud creak of the unmaintained hinges, Min crossed the dusty portal into the lobby of the test site office complex. Immediately she began to notice signs of recent habitation, and even more recent evacuation. Overturned coffee mugs still smelled of xander root tea, the hot beverage of choice in the Mojave; a piece of prickly pear fruit had just begun to rot, and had yet to attract any insects. Even more telling, clear trails in the dust led into the hallways that led away from either side of the room. Gazing upwards, a giant mobile hung from the ceiling, the model rocket sadly rotating in the gentle breeze. Balconies lined the upper part of the lobby, all abandoned.

Quietly moving past the looted desk, Min picked open the lock on the door immediately behind the greeter's position. The lock was nearly rusted shut, explaining why the Novac salvagers hadn't opened the door previously. As the lock finally gave to a combination of lockpick and shoulder application, Min heard mutters of conversation from the second floor. Realizing her exposed location, the Courier slipped through the door, carefully engaging the latch behind her.

The closed door saved Min's life in that moment. As the door closed, a loud crash resounded from the other side. In that moment, as the wall collapsed over the savior door, Min could do nothing but stare in astonishment, as the sounds of moving feet and feral moans filled her ears, wondering where such a simple mission had gone so wrong.

Abandoning any hope of leaving the way she came, but very curious about what had managed to take down a wall right behind her, Min ran out the gaping doorway on the other side of the office that she found herself in. As she turned the corner into the dank hallway, she pulled the hatchet from her belt, and tucked her repeater under her arm, for easy access. Cursing the loud clops her boots produced as she ran, Min almost missed the telltale moan of a nearby feral ghoul. As she flew around a left-hand corner, running back towards the front of the building, the Courier ran directly into the arms of a waiting ghoul.

As the ghoul (who seemed just as surprised as the Courier) reeled backwards, compensating for the transfer of kinetic energy, Min followed the walking corpse, swinging her hatchet in a downwards arc. As the hatchet slashed down, the ghoul stumbled, moving its head out of the blade's trajectory. The wedge of the blade, instead of planting deep in the skull, caved in the left orbit, and ripped out through the rotting tatters of the cheek, taking a handful of teeth along for the ride, and dehinging the jaw.

"Fuck!" Screaming in frustration, the Courier rammed the butt of her repeater into the ghoul's chest, knocking it to the ground, where she finished it with another hatchet blow.

Standing over her latest kill, chest heaving against her leather armor as she greedily drew in breath, the sounds of a violent commotion reached her ears. Pulling out a bottle of purified water, Min drained half the bottle in a long pull, washing away much of her fatigue. Replacing the bottle in her backpack, the Courier, slid the hatchet into her belt, checked the load on her repeater, and stepped back into the lobby.

Almost surreally, the first thing the Courier noticed was the mobile. It had fallen, taking much of its chain with it, and had landed nose-first on the reception desk. Beside the crushed splinters of the rocket-desk, incongruously, the tail-end of a pre-War military vehicle was visible, skid marks indicating a futile attempt at braking.

As the Courier continued to tune out the ghouls that had begun to spill into the room from the other hallway, she stared at the most bizarre part of the whole spectacle: Stumbling out of the wrecked vehicle were the most outlandish people Min had ever seen. Their eyes were slanted, like the Shin of San Francisco back home in the NCR, but their faces were clean, with none of the ingrained grime that was common to all wasteland dwellers. Their hair was elaborately styled, and profoundly unnatural in color; most strangely, one girl who had emerged from the rear of the vehicle had ridiculously long pink hair, styled into a two-tailed effort, with each tail reaching her waist. Most bizarrely, the females were all over-endowed to the point of grotesquery, most notably a stunned blonde, whose breasts appeared larger than her head.

As a baffled Min continued to try and make sense of the scene before her, the group noticed the feral ghouls, and reached for an arsenal of weapons that had apparently been stowed inside the vehicle.

With a cry almost as feral as the onrushing ghouls the first of the vehicle people drew a sword, and rushed towards the horde.


	2. Chapter 2: Kohta

**Author Notes: As before, I have no claim to either **_**Fallout: New Vegas**_**, or **_**High School of the Dead**_**. Also, many thanks to my new beta, Drgyen, who edited this story for me.**

Name: Kohta Hirano

Level/Karma: "Dignitary"

Strength: 4

Perception: 6

Endurance: 3

Charisma: 5

Intelligence: 7

Agility: 7

Luck: 5

Traits: Four Eyes, Trigger Discipline

Perks: Swift Learner, Rapid Reload

Skills:

Barter: 13

Energy Weapons: 25

Explosives: 35

Guns: 55 (tag)

Lockpick: 15

Medicine: 17

Melee Weapons: 11

Repair: 35 (tag)

Science: 35 (tag)

Sneak: 25

Speech: 13

Survival: 9

Unarmed: 9

As the survivors fled the overrun Takagi estate, the Humvee's wheels bumped and skidded as the car slalomed back and forth around crashed cars and other debris. Kohta could still make out the silhouette of Matsudo, waving a last goodbye before returning to the hopeless last stand. As the military-grade vehicle veered around a corner, the mechanic brought a heavy wrench crashing down on the head of one of THEM.

Kohta turned forwards in the gunner's space. Below, inside the Humvee's interior, he could faintly hear the sobs that Saya was desperately trying to suppress. Kohta sighed, before blasting one of THEM out of the way. Only this morning, a lifetime ago, safety had seemed so close. He had woken in a real bed, without having THEM clawing at the windows. It had almost felt like his old-life, prior to the infection; in fact, it had been almost too much like his old life. Aside from his friends – Kohta still felt a warm glow deep inside whenever he remembered that he had friends – nobody had treated him with any respect.

The adults, who had cowered behind the Takagi's strong arms and mighty walls all through the apocalypse, had tried to take away his weapons, had tried to castrate him, to return him to docility! What right did they have, those cows – Kohta realized that his fingers were twitching around the rifle cradled in his hands. After taking a few cool down breaths, he looked out along their path, as the Humvee headed towards the highway. He closed his eyes and took another deep breath. Just as he began to exhale, a peculiar sensation came over the teen.

For a brief, yet eternal, moment, Kohta's eyes were both closed and open. He could see all, from the vast interstellar spaces to the madly rushing, yet perfectly ordered, electrons orbiting atomic cores. His body hurtled across centuries and miles, yet never left the Humvee's hatch. His body was torn apart, yet left whole.

As abruptly had the bizarre experience begun, so it also ended. The disoriented Kohta, still staggered from the godlike sensation which even now faded from his mind, had no recollection of closing his eyes back on the bridge, and thus felt a perfect moment of terror as he hurtled through the air, restrained only by the turret's straps as the Humvee skidded across a floor. The moment of ephemeral absolute terror was almost instantly blotted out by the impact wave produced by the Humvee running into a wall at 45 miles per hour. Kohta was nearly thrown clear of the vehicle, saved only by the webbing that tore patches of skin from his legs. His eyes flew open as he screamed, before both his eyes and his mouth filled with concrete dust, as the ancient wall finally gave up the ghost, and partially collapsed. To his right, a rocket – wait, a rocket? Where had that come from? – fell from the heavens, slamming into an oversized desk.

"This must be a dream." Kohta stated, as no other explanation could possibly begin to make sense of the last minute. As the echoing silence in his ears faded, moans and cries of pain reached his ears. Looking down through the hatch, Kohta was briefly stunned by the sight below him: all of his friends were sprawled throughout the Humvee's interior. In a moment of clarity, a trickle of blood dribbled down a cracked pane of glass, next to Rei, whose forehead had begun to bleed. Shizuka lay underneath the bent steering wheel, curled into a fetal position. Saeko, more alert than the rest, had already recovered from the impact, and had begun clambering over her seat to reach her still-stunned friends. Takashi rubbed at his right arm, before looking around, trying to figure out what had happened. Alice wept on the floor, as she cradled a badly scraped and bruised head, and tried to stand up straight. Zeke, his small mass more affected by the sudden stop, had been thrown by the force of the crash against a door, and whimpered in pain. Even from his elevated position, Kohta could see that his back was broken.

"Saya?" He whispered for his angel, his idol. "Saya?" Louder this time. "Saya!"

"Baka!" A hand slapped at his dangling legs, and a great pressure that Kohta hadn't even registered lifted off his chest. He hadn't failed! His dearest love wasn't gone! Looking down, he could see her heavily bruised (but still beautiful) face glaring back up at him, though poorly-hidden relief dominated the petty annoyance in her darkened and swollen eyes.

Gradually, the group crawled free of the broken steel compartment, Takashi gingerly carrying Zeke. As the teens, nurse, and child stood beside the wreckage of the vehicle that had carried them so far, they gazed at each other, shock and consternation plainly written across all faces, even Alice's. Suddenly, the group noticed the sound of many feet hitting the ground – and approaching. This noise, so awfully familiar to those present, perversely made Kohta feel more at home in this strange new place. A little fragment of home was here! True, that fragment had destroyed all they had ever known only days previously, but anything familiar was welcome.

While the other party members began to pull weapons out of the vehicle's rear compartment, Kohta's trained ears began to pick up a subtle difference in the approaching footsteps: Instead of the usual shamble that THEY used, the footsteps were clear and distinct, and, more troubling, were moving at increasing speed. Running around to the rear of the crashed Humvee, he frantically grappled to get his AR-10 into position. As he swung around the footsteps crescendoed as a horde of decaying, yet still animate, bodies flooded out of a partially collapsed hallway. Screeching and clawing, the horde rushed across the open space towards the Humvee, only to meet a wedge coming the other way. Led by a sword-wielding Saeko, Takashi and Rei plunged into the horde. Kohta, already a combat veteran at age sixteen, dropped into the coldness of the professional soldier, and began choosing his shots. To his right, Saya yelled incoherently at THEM, before opening up with her mother's Luger. Professionally, Kohta worried about friendly fire, but realized that training Saya would have to wait.

The rifle recoiled back into his shoulder again and again as reanimate after reanimate fell to his bullets. He could feel a wide smile growing across his face, but refused to be distracted from his prey. As he reloaded, changing out magazines, he took the opportunity to crouch, placing the rifle on the edge of the shattered desk, for greater stability.

Line up shot, pull trigger, compensate for recoil.

Line up shot, pull trigger, compensate for recoil.

Line up shot, pull trigger, compensate for recoil, and reload. Repeat.

As Kohta changed out his third magazine, he realized that he was fighting nearly side by side with Saeko, whose snarl resembled his slasher grin. Steadily but surely, the fighters were forced to give up ground.

Suddenly, he heard a loud wail to his left, followed by a high-pitched scream of pain. Turning from the targets in front of him for a moment, Kohta was horrified to see Rei, pulled off balance by a rotting hand tangled in her long auburn hair, stumble forward. A particularly fast ghoul slammed past her bayonet and grabbed her by the lapels of her tattered and stained uniform, yanking her back into the horde.

"REI!" Takashi cried out the name of his childhood friend before rushing after her, using his shotgun as a club. Saeko followed Takashi and her sword moved faster than Kohta's sniper eyes could follow. THEY fell back before the desperation fueled attack, as Kohta and Saya shot any ghoul who approached the pair of melee fighters.

Takashi bent down briefly, and Saeko made a fighting retreat, keeping THEM off their leader's back, as he lifted the fallen Rei in a fireman's carry, and staggered back behind the desk.

Kohta reached down for another magazine, and realized that he had only one more. To his right, he heard repeated clicks as Saya attempted to coax another bullet out of a dry pistol. To his left, Saeko was clearly tiring, her swings becoming slower, though no less deadly. Takashi was behind him, yelling at Rei, telling her to stay with him. Shizuka had climbed down from the roof of the vehicle, where she, Alice, and Zeke had taken refuge, and began to try and stop Rei's bleeding. The humming in Kohta's ears grew louder, until rational thought was obliterated. Plunging back into the cold, analytical sniper persona, Kohta vowed to make every shot count. Taking a last look at Saya, he slammed the last magazine home, and opened fire.

Suddenly, a new source of gunfire opened up from behind and to the left of THEM. Chancing another look away from the shrinking horde as he dropped another body, Kohta saw a welcome site: a young woman wearing battered and scuffed leathers, thumbing shells into an old-fashioned repeater. Even as he watched, one of them turned away from the besieged survivors and charged the woman. Without missing a beat, she pulled a hatchet out of her belt with her free hand, and slammed the sharpened wedge through the neck of her attacker. As the reanimated corpse fell, she released the embedded hatchet, and began to fire into THEIR backs once again.

Seized by this chance of survival, Kohta began to laugh, great belly laughs of mixed relief and bloodlust, which didn't disturb his deadly accuracy. Within moments, the ruined lobby was cleared of THEM, leaving the blood-soaked and wearied group staring across a charnel house at the mysterious woman, who glared right back, chambering rounds as she did so.


	3. Chapter 3: Saeko

**Author Notes: As before, I have no claim to either _Fallout: New Vegas_, or _High School of the Dead_. As before, a big thanks to Drgyen for his beta work!**

Name: Saeko Busujima

Level/Karma: "Defender"

Strength: 9 (Intense Training)

Perception: 6

Endurance: 5

Charisma: 8

Intelligence: 6

Agility: 4

Luck: 5

Traits: Built to Destroy, Kamikaze

Perks: Intense Training, Educated

Skills:

Barter: 25

Energy Weapons: 15

Explosives: 15

Guns: 11

Lockpick: 15

Medicine: 15

Melee Weapons: 59 (tag)

Repair: 15

Science: 15

Sneak: 26 (tag)

Speech: 50 (tag)

Survival: 13

Unarmed: 20

As Kohta and the strangely dressed woman glared at one another like dogs vying for dominance, Saeko took a quick look at her surroundings. The entire building seemed grey, from walls to floor to ceiling. Unknowable stains trickled down the filthy concrete, and shattered signs hung crookedly from rusting hooks. Even the air itself was grey, choked full of dust and gun smoke. Beams of sunlight gleamed through cracks in windows, turning thin sections of the swirling filth golden. The only other breaks in the universal coat of grey were the vibrant colors the survivor group had brought with them, from their hair to the smear of crimson where Rei had been savaged by the horde.

Tearing her eyes away from the sprawled corpses of THEM, the last daughter of the Busujima dojo turned back toward her comrades. Kohta and the woman who, like everything else here, seemed grey in the half-light, had begun to talk in English. Saeko was near fluent, but her grasp of the English language was shamefully outmatched by the fluency Kohta was displaying. As she watched, the two began to exchange names, searching for common ground. Looking past Kohta, Saeko watched as Takeshi and Shizuka crouched over Rei, whose whimpers of pain echoed in the two-story room. Shamefully, Saeko could feel a growing slickness in her undergarments as she listened to the injured girl's suffering. Sighing at her own failings, Saeko turned away from Takeshi and Rei; while she wanted to comfort the one man who had accepted her for who she was, she knew he wouldn't appreciate the intrusion. Instead, Saeko took the opportunity to examine the fallen bodies of their assailants.

As she knelt another half-scream tore its way out of Rei's bloody mouth, sending a shiver of pleasure through her thighs which Saeko concealed by pretending to stumble on her way down. Kneeling beside a fallen THEM, Saeko noticed several differences between this most recent batch of attackers and the reanimates her comrades had contended with since the last day at Fujimi Academy: While THEY had all had grey skin and sightless eyes, these most recent contenders had flaking brown skin, and discolored but still usable eyes. Casting her mind back to the battle, Saeko realized that the creatures had reacted to visual stimuli, like the movement of Kohta's weapon, proving that they had the capacity of sight as well as hearing. Further, THEY had always attacked by biting and grappling; these had almost exclusively clawed, but at least two had tried to punch her.

The sword mistress reluctantly came to the conclusion that these were not THEM, not the creatures that had hounded them across the ruins of Tokonosu City; they were something different, and alien to their experiences.

Looking back towards her comrades, Saeko felt her eyes widen in surprise as the stranger knelt by Rei's side, next to Takagi, and injected something into the supine girl's arm. Kohta peered over the leather-clad woman's shoulder, watching with interest as the woman's injection instantly began to improve Rei's condition. Saeko stood, and silently walked back over to Takeshi's side.

"Be strong, Takeshi-kun. See, her pain has already begun to leave, and her skin is beginning to regain its rosy glow." She put a hand on the kneeling boy's shoulder, and squeezed, trying to convey her concern and support through the contact.

The leader of the group looked back up. "Yeah, her pain's leaving, and her wounds are somehow closing but… bu… But she was bitten by THEM! You and I both know what that means!" Unnoticed by the young man, tears had begun to well up from the corners of his eyes. "I… I don't want her to die! I don't want to have to kill her like I had to kill Hisashi!"

With a gentleness that her old kendo opponents could never have imagined, Saeko gently wiped his tears away with the tip of one elegant finger. With a small smile tugging at her lips, Saeko shared her observations. "Takeshi-kun; whatever those we just fought were, they weren't THEM. They look somewhat different and attacked with a completely different method. There is no guarantee that their bite is fatal." The look of mingled surprise and hope in his eyes took her breath away. Sadly, she cut their moment short. "Rei will be alright, but we need our leader, Takeshi-kun. I'll stay and help Shizuka, if you go talk with Kohta about our mysterious stranger."

Taking the now-vacant place at Rei's side, Saeko applied pressure to the wadded bandages as Shizuka stitched the cuts and gashes up as best she could. While the injection the stranger had given Rei had dulled her pain and assisted the natural healing processes, it couldn't magically seal cuts; only time would take away the tears, hopefully leaving behind unmarred skin. Saeko couldn't figure out what the injection had been: As a part of her father's training, Saeko had received a crash-course in trauma drugs commonly used after training accidents, but none of the drugs or chemicals she'd learned about had the kind of immediate effects that the medicine had. Rei had fallen into some kind of slumber and was actually snoring, so at least part of the drug had a sedative effect – possibly the part that also managed pain. This indicated the presence of an opiate – maybe morphine? As for the rest of the cocktail, the swordswoman couldn't hazard a guess as to its components or effects.

As Rei was stabilized, Saeko listened to the conversation between Takeshi and the stranger via Kohta's translation. Somehow, the group had been transported from Honshu to America, close to the famed Las Vegas. A brief shudder crossed Saeko's elegant face as she remembered the feeling of utter hopelessness and irrelevancy that the bizarre crossing had inspired in her soul. To be ripped out of one's surroundings, and arbitrarily inserted elsewhere was horrible enough, but to be unable to prevent such a transition? Unthinkable!

From the looks of it, America had been hit hard by the end of the world; in fact, the decay looked much more thorough and complete than it had in Japan. Maybe they had just arrived in an already abandoned building? No, the woman said that this was one of the more intact "Pre-War" buildings. Though, from what Kohta was translating, the stranger seemed to think that it was hundreds of years in the future. On one hand, she might simply be an armed lunatic much like the thug who had attempted to rape Rei back at the gas station; on the other, if some unknown force could send them thousands of miles away in a moment, would a change in time be so unbelievable?

Tearing her thoughts away from the ravings of the madwoman, and stepping back to allow Shizuka better access to a gash across Rei's thighs, Saeko realized that not a single one of her comrades was paying any attention to their surroundings, and decided to start exploring the rest of the building. Before they got any more comfortable here, she reasoned, they should have some idea of who else might be here. But, no sooner had she begun to walk towards the hallway that THEY had emerged from, Takeshi's voice called her back to his side. The weak boy, full of fear and anxiety, was gone; the strong leader, her one love, had returned!

"Saeko-san; I don't even know where to begin, but a description of our situation can wait! According to Min-san over here," he waved his arm at the stranger, who nodded at the purple-haired girl in recognition, "a settlement is nearby, and a doctor lives there. Apparently, the drug she gave Rei will help her heal, and will close the skin, but won't repair the internal damage, so we need to visit the settlement. Saeko-san, you and Kohta are our strongest fighters, and I need you to help me save Rei's life! Shizuka-san, Saya, and I will carry her on a litter, but we'll need you and Kohta to defend us from THEM. Will you help me?"

Saeko honestly didn't know why Takeshi felt the need to give such a grandiose speech, but it didn't matter to her. She, as a warrior, would follow her lord into hell – and as a woman, she would follow her love to the abyss. She favored him with a smile. "You can rely on me. Not a hair on her head will be harmed."

He smiled back. "Thank you, Saeko-san."

Then, like a branch slowly peeling away from a tree before falling to the ground, the smile ran away from his face. Turning slowly, he tapped Kohta on the shoulder. "Kohta, could you give me one of your pistols?" With a face nearly as grim as Takeshi's, Kohta handed him the police pistol that they'd found less than a week before, so long ago. Takeshi thanked the gunman, before walking over to the wreckage of the vehicle that had carried them from a burning mansion.

The youngest member of their little band knelt beside the smallest of the companions, weeping. During the crash Zeke had been hurled into one of the interior poles of the vehicle, snapping his spine. The brave little dog lay on the ground, only whimpering when touched. With a somber air, Kohta embraced Alice, picking her up and moving her from the dog, making comforting noises all the while. Takeshi knelt beside Zeke and stroked his ears for a moment, before putting the pistol to the back of the dog's skull and firing a single shot, ending his misery.


	4. Chapter 4: Min

**Author Notes: As before, I have no claim to either **_**Fallout: New Vegas**_**, or **_**High School of the Dead**_**. As before, a big thanks to Drgyen for his beta work! Also, thanks to Robert Jordan for his stupendous **_**Wheel of Time**_** saga. Min's name is a homage to one of my favorite series ever.**

"Hello? Can you understand me?" The short boy, who seemed remarkably well fed, spoke first. Min wondered why he expected her to not understand him.

"Yes, though your accent is funny. Where are you from?" The Courier sized up the opposition. They'd handled the ghouls fairly well, but from the looks of it were running low on ammunition. Plus, one of their comrades was injured. If she threw one of the sticks of dynamite that she'd looted from a fallen Powder Ganger, she should be able to escape in the confusion.

"Tokonosu City. My name is Hirano Kohta. By your voice, I'm guessing that you're an American?" The Courier's confusion deepened. Min had never heard of a place with such a strange name, and America had died two hundred years ago in a sea of nuclear fire.

"Well, Hirano, we're in a place that was once called 'America', but that was two centuries ago. So, I ask again: What the hell are you doing here, and where did you come from?" Her hand was almost to the stick of dynamite hidden in her sack. If she could light it fast enough, she could hurl herself back into the corridor.

"Look, I'm not going to attack you! Nobody here is! We don't know how we got here! One moment, we were fleeing THEM, next we're crashing into that walls! Please, we don't want to fight!" Hirano had begun to wave his hands back and forth in front of his chest, after slinging his gun over his shoulder in a manner that had nearly prompted a preemptive barrage from Min. Behind him, the other male and the oldest woman were crouched over the fallen girl, and seemed to be administering first aid. The girl with the long purple hair had moved over towards the fallen ghouls, and was staring intently at the bodies. The little girl was crouched over the smallest dog the Courier had ever seen, and had begun to bawl. The last girl, with improbably pink hair, had begun to glare in an unfriendly way that contrasted with Kohta's calming words.

The Courier, deciding that she could probably take them down before they did too much damage if they proved unfriendly, lowered her repeater and moved her hand away from the dynamite.

As the rest of the crew busied themselves over salvaging materials from the crash and other assorted tasks, Kohta introduced Min to his companions, and told the Courier about the last horrific week. From the school, to the apartment, meeting Alice and Zeke, and traveling to the Takagi Mansion, Kohta wove an improbable story that nevertheless explained their proficiency for combat, yet youthful appearance and behavior. After the rifleman had convinced her that they truly had no idea how they'd managed to get to the Mojave, Min administered one of her carefully hoarded stimpacks to their fallen comrade, in a show of goodwill.

"What you have to understand, Kohta…" The Courier sat with her back against the wall, lighting a prewar cigarette with a lighter that, in different circumstances, would have ignited a fuse. "…Is that the America you visited never happened. I don't know anything about the Japan that you're talking about, but I do know that the prewar America's greatest enemy was China, a Communist state who tried to steal our resources during the last years before the end. After that, it was just a matter of time. Fire descended, and broke the world. We live in the ashes." Taking another drag, Min was amused at how wide Kohta's eyes were. It was like watching a child at story-time at a caravan fire, after a long day's march.

"Well, the world went on. New nations rose up from the wastes, and from the Vaults, massive bunkers underground. Currently, there are three major players in this area, all of whom want control over the reborn city of New Vegas, and, more importantly, over Hoover Dam. The first, the New California Republic, are good at heart, but inefficient and corrupt, and have a bad tendency to take what they want, rolling over the original owners. However, they're certainly better than Caesar's Legion. They're raiders organized and bred to be absolutely merciless mass murderers, who take slaves and use rape as a weapon. They're marching out of Arizona, and are going to attack the NCR at Hoover Dam again soon. Finally, there's Mr. House, who controls New Vegas. I don't know much about him, besides the fact that nobody knows much about him."

Min's eyes darkened. "So, let me tell you a little story. One day, a young woman carrying a package containing an oversized poker chip leaves Primm, on the road north to Vegas. She leaves Primm late in the evening, when the road is more likely to be empty, so imagine her surprise when she suddenly comes under fire! But, Jackals and Vipers aren't too uncommon, and she's dealt with raiders before, so she hides in a nearby hovel, exchanging fire back and forth with unseen foes. Suddenly, her eyes explode with whiteness, and the back of her head explodes in pain! Staggering, she's tripped, and shoved to the ground, and hit once more. This time, the world goes dark. The poor woman awakes a few minutes later, with hands bound together and her socks crammed into her mouth. She sees that she's surrounded by raiders of the Great Khan gang, as well as a surprise: A man wearing the ugliest suit she's ever had the displeasure to see stands in front of her, smirking down. He snaps at the Khans, and they carry her struggling and kicking form to a nearby cemetery, where a shallow grave awaits. Kneeling at the side of that grave, she is first monologue'd halfway to death, before being finished with a bullet to the head."

Kohta looks confused at both her story and the downright sinister expression on her face – or, at least, on the lower half of her face, all that he could see under the cowboy hat that hid her eyes. His confusion disappeared like a molerat under assault by a paladin-wielded gatling laser as the Courier pulled back the battered brim. While the lower part of her face was quite fetching – though not as much as Saya's face, he hastily added mentally – the forehead had a single, though distinctive blemish: a small white circle of scar tissue in the dead center of the pale skin. Below the hole and eyebrows only beginning to regrow post-surgery, two hazel eyes burnt with rage and a desire for blood.

"A robot found me, and carried me to Doc Mitchell in Goodsprings. He did what he could. He pulled the .22 from where it had lodged in my skull, and managed to repair the damage the concussion had done. It could have been worse, but that's irrelevant: I will hunt the man in the checkered suit to the Dam and back. And that hunt brought me here. A man in a nearby settlement has information for me, but won't give it to me until this facility is cleared of ghouls." Min's eyes softened, and lost the hate-fueled edge. "Since you and your friends did most of the legwork, I'll help you to Novac. There's a doctor there, and she can patch your friend up. By the way," She sketched a brief salute at Kohta "My name is Min Farshaw. It's a pleasure to meet you, Hirano Kohta."

Min shook her head in disbelief, dislodging the battered cowboy hat that crowned her boyishly short black hair. While the zealous and skillful defense they'd put up against the ghoulish onslaught had been impressive, her tolerance for their nonsense was wearing thin.

When the group had finally stopped panicking over their injured comrade, and once the leader had decided upon a course of action, every member of the group seemed to lose any sort of professionalism, and had fallen to bickering in their indecipherable language. Kohta, the only member of the group who seemed to speak English, had instantly lost his soldierly bearing over the first pout from the bespectacled girl, and had begun acting like a dog desperate for a pat on the head. Takeshi, the nominal leader, couldn't pull himself together until the purple-haired girl had provided a soothing voice. That same girl, whose name seemed to fit her actions in the battle against the ghouls to a tee, Saeko, was clearly a capable warrior, and equally clearly a nightstalker in brahmin's clothing; her face had reminded the Courier of nothing more than the Vexillarius in Nipton. Shizuka, the only adult in the group, acted more childishly than any of the alleged children, and had done little to help the group, earning her nothing but contempt in Min's eyes. In the Wastes, there is no room for dead weight; everyone must play their role for the survival of all, and it was clear that Shizuka was entirely inadequate. Saya had earned a similar amount of contempt for the same reason: During the defense, she had barely contributed in any meaningful way; during the interactions after, she had sown only dissent, as far as Min could tell. Min hadn't been able to get any sort of read on Rei, though it was interesting that her comrades had assumed that a ghoul-inflicted injury would automatically turn the victim into a ghoul.

The fact that Takeshi had apparently been willing to kill Rei to spare her that kind of fate ameliorated some of the distaste she had for his weakness, and the merciful killing of the crippled dog had further lent credence to the stories Kohta had told her, about a desperate flight from a city descending into an orgy of bloodshed.

As the group finally reached some semblance of order and began to assemble a litter to carry Rei and their gear on, Min turned her mind away from the contemplation of group dynamics and towards more practical affairs. Walking away from the group, the Courier quickly searched the fallen ghouls for anything of use. After finding a handful of 20 gauge shells on one ghoul and a handful of prewar money on another, which might bring a few caps back at Novac, Min returned to the group, and helped lash the crude litter together. Made from a deformed piece of sheet-metal torn from the collapsed rocket, with holes punched into the sides threaded with pieces of belting from the vehicle's seats, the litter was ugly, and hard to carry, but would suffice. As the last strap was threaded, Saya, Shizuka, and Takeshi picked up Rei, and carefully lowered her onto the steel, before putting their guns at her sides, along with her rifle. The disarmed members of the group bent one last time, and, with difficulty, picked up the litter.

"Finally!" Min snorted, before nodding at Kohta and Saeko. As promised, she'd help them to Novac, before setting off to claim her revenge. She could hardly wait.


	5. Chapter 5: Kohta

**Author Notes: As before, I have no claim to either **_**Fallout: New Vegas**_**, or **_**High School of the Dead**_**. As before, a big thanks to Drgyen for his beta work! **

Kohta cautiously opened the battered lobby door to the outside world, and squinted in the glare of the 2 o'clock sun. Holding his rifle at port arms, he walked out into the alien world – and nearly staggered as the heat hit him like a hammer blow. Unlike the humid summers in Japan, this heat was very dry, so much that Kohta would later swear that he could feel his lungs desiccate with each breath. Recovering his balance, he moved out from the doorway, and took up a position behind one of the walls overlooking the parking lot and entrance to the compound. Seeing no lurking hostiles, he motioned for the rest of the party to advance. Min, moving in a gentle crouch, slowly walked down the stairs next to him, stepping over a ghoulish corpse that had already begun to rot in the desert heat. The litter party followed her, moving much less silently, and Saeko brought up the rear. Kohta abandoned his position, and leapfrogged out ahead of the group, taking cover behind a burnt out car. He looked for foes, and, seeing none, made the motion to advance again.

After clearing the old checkpoint, the group abandoned their advance pattern, falling back into a closer group as the landscape flattened out, leaving nothing to hide behind. Off in the distance, Novac beckoned, the dinosaur sniper's nest Min had told them about already visible. Kohta sighed with relief that Rei would have access to medical care, and that Min had told the truth.

"She's pretty scary" he mumbled to himself, "but at least she's honest, and willing to help us."

Like magic, a voice that eerily reminded the gunman of his American drill instructor sounded out from behind him. "Save your breath and march faster!"

Kohta ceased his mumbling as advised, and shouldered his weapon. For another three hours the party walked in complete silence, until Min called a halt. Sheltering under the meager shade produced by an ancient road sign, the group nearly collapsed in relief as Min pulled six water bottles from her rucksack, like a magician conjuring rabbits. The water was warm and had the taste of purification tablets, but had to be one of the most delicious things Kohta had ever tasted. The slight coolness of the shade, coupled with the faint breeze blowing across the desert, soothed his sunburnt skin. Looking at his companions, Kohta saw relief mirrored on everybody's faces to some extent, from Saya's look of near desperate gratitude at the break to Saeko's stoic expression. However, the break was over almost before it began, as a whimper of pain from Rei brought everybody back from the temporary nirvana to which they'd escaped. As Min policed up the emptied bottles with a look of disgust at the wanton consumption of most of her water supply, Takeshi, Saya, and Shizuka resumed their burden, and lifted Rei's stretcher back onto their shoulders. The party resumed their march, the dinosaur growing larger and larger.

However, the march halted once more only a half hour later. This time, it wasn't because of a called break – instead, a small group of men had stepped out of the cover of a nearby gulley. Each carried numerous weapons, and wore crimson armor that appeared to have been fashioned out of sports gear, with a wide variety of additions, including what looked like a coyote pelt in the case of the rearmost man. As the men spread out across the road, blocking the way towards Novac, Kohta suddenly felt a rough hand grab his shoulder and push him aside. Spinning around, Kohta was almost run over by the Courier, who unlimbered her repeater as she strode towards the crimson-clad men.

The man nearest towards the center of the road came forward to meet the rapidly approaching Courier. With a sharpened machete in hand, the plumed soldier put his other hand out towards Min in an imperious gesture. In a voice pompous enough to match his self-absorbed air, the soldier began yelling at the Courier. "Stop, Profligate! For your crimes against the Legion, and the murder of the esteemed Vulpes Inculta, Caesar has marked you for death, and the Legion ob-" The first round went through the man's outstretched hand, tearing the middle finger off at the knuckle. While the detached finger flew back towards its erstwhile owner, a second shot thundered out from the Courier's smoking repeater, and slammed into the man's chest plate, the force of the bullet's impact causing him to stagger backwards.

With the dull _whap_ of metal impacting armored padding, Kohta's inertia abruptly wore off, as the other Legion-men went for their weapons. Kohta quickly dropped to a knee, and unslung his rifle, disappearing into the cold void of the dedicated marksman as he knelt. As he opened fire, some fraction of his mind casually noted that Saeko had charged ahead, and was crossing blades with a rapidly backpedaling soldier, while the Courier had begun trading fire with the man wearing the dog-hat, while running for cover. He heard a _clang_ from behind, as Takeshi, Saya, and Shizuka put Rei's litter on the ground as gently as possible, before grabbing weapons, not minding the dearth of ammunition. Kohta himself was carefully husbanding his last eight bullets, as he tried to put down his motorcycle helmeted assailant. Finally, one of his shots fulfilled its purpose, and slammed into the shiny aluminum of the helmet.

Turning to search for hostile targets, Kohta was abashed to see Saeko's and Min's targets already down. The soldier who had foolishly crossed blades with the female samurai lay on the ground, struggling for breath as his lifeblood flowed from the stumps at the end of his elbows; Saeko stood over the man, staring down with a look of undeniable fascination, similar to the expression of a cat staring at an injured mouse. Suddenly shivering despite the desert heat, Kohta turned to the Courier. Surprisingly, she was kneeling on the ground, cradling the fallen assassin's head in her lap, as he bled out on the shattered asphalt. His helmet had been knocked off his head, and Min had taken off the man's sunglasses; without the helmet and glasses, his face looked much younger and less intimidating. The pallor of his face, and the frantic incomprehensible fluttering of his lips and eyelid further underlined his humanity. Looking at the face of the enemy, Kohta felt a sudden sense of vertigo: For the first time, he had taken a human life. The man he had just killed had a personality, hopes, and friends, maybe family. As Min gently closed the assassin's eyes for the last time and murmured over his body and as Saeko's killing vigor slipped away in the sudden confusion, Kohta collapsed to his knees, his weapon hanging loosely from his hands. Thinking that he had been injured, Shizuka rushed to his side, and started searching for wounds. Finding none, she gave him a quick, overwhelming embrace, and returned to Rei's litter. After slowly climbing to his feet in the wake of the nurse's hug, Kohta walked over to the rock behind which his fallen foe had slumped.

Squatting down beside the collapsed ambusher, Kohta gently eased the breached helmet off the dead man's head. Deformed by the bullet's passage, Kohta had to pull heavily to work the helmet off the head, but eventually triumphed. The legionnaire, as Kohta identified the attacker based on Min's stories of the wasteland, hadn't looked particularly handsome prior to his death, and the passage of the killing bullet hadn't helped his aesthetic qualities. The man's brown hair had been shorn almost to the scalp, revealing a network of scars, new and old, that also covered his battered face. One of the man's green eyes had been ruptured by the impact of the bullet, while the other one gazed balefully ahead. His lips were still pursed in concentration, while his jaw hung slack, unhinged by the bullet's concussive force. Kohta burnt every plane, every angle, of the man's face into his mind, memorizing the tracery of scars across the cheeks and flattened nose, and committing the staring single eye to memory.

Min squatted beside him. "A few years ago, a soldier on the way south towards Baja taught me a little prayer to say over the dead. 'Deep sleep, and a better life next time.' I think it's a prayer he might appreciate." She nodded at the dead man. Kohta hesitantly reached towards the dead man's face and, after overcoming his instinct to recoil away from the already decaying meat, closed the single remaining eye as gently as possible, and repeated the unfamiliar words. "Deep sleep, and a better life next time."

Courier and student stood, dusting off their knees. As Kohta began to walk back towards the rest of the group, Min clapped a hand on his shoulder. "Remember what I told you about the Legion: These are not good people; they are not our friends, and if we hadn't killed them first, they would have killed us. Life is cheap out here. That said, it's good that you feel bad about killing somebody. You should feel bad; you should feel worse if you ever stop feeling that way afterwards." For a moment, the Courier paused, as if thinking. With the air of a wise-woman bestowing knowledge, she gave Kohta another pearl of wisdom "Also, this whole encounter shouldn't have turned out this way: We got lucky, and they thought that I'd be alone. The Legion will want revenge for this." With those comforting words, the Courier squeezed Kohta's shoulder, and wandered away, leaving the short teen alone with his thoughts.

Kohta's isolation was short-lived; as Saya and Takeshi repositioned Rei on the litter, the pink haired girl noticed Kohta's short conversation with the Courier, and correctly read the distress written across his face. She went to reassure him, pausing only to glare suspiciously at Min as she returned to the group. The Courier gave the aristocratic girl a placid smile in return, earning a derisive snort from the scion of the Takagi line as she hurried to the marksman's side. "Hey! Idiot! What're you doing, moping around out here?"

Kohta, consumed with his thoughts, jerked with the surprise of suddenly being spoken to by his idol, and nearly fell down. "S-sorry, Saya-san! I'm coming!" He quickly hurried to her side, and searched her face for some sign of approval. As always, a cold and imperious expression glared back at him, killing his hopes. Thus, he was greatly and pleasantly surprised to feel slim, warm arms draw him into an embrace. "Idiot, don't worry. You saved our lives – if you hadn't put that man down, he might've been able to attack Takeshi, Shizuka, Alice or I before we could arm ourselves!" For a moment, Saya and Kohta enjoy the tranquility of the embrace, only to jump apart suddenly as Min barked at them from across the road. "Break time is over! We need to move these bodies off the road before they begin to stink!" Kohta relayed the message to the rest of the group, and went to help Takeshi move the corpses off the road and into the desert, where they were unceremoniously dropped into the same gulley they'd emerged from twenty minutes before.

The group stood in silence for another moment more, gazing at the supine corpses piled on the desert floor and pondering the nature of mortality and how transitory life can be, before collectively shaking themselves back to wakefulness. Kohta shouldered his empty rifle once more and Saeko returned her blade to its scabbard as everybody else except the Courier picked up Rei's litter. Novac beckoned, and with it, a promise of a temporary reprieve from the violence of the bitterly hot Mojave.

As Kohta walked past the boarded-up buildings on Novac's outskirts, he wondered how many other lives he'd have to end, before he and his friends would find a place of safety, or a way back home. He hoped not many… But even as he prayed for an end to the constant violence of the last few weeks, deep inside the young killer, an inexplicable feeling of mirth bubbled, as he recalled the broken face of his defeated enemy. For the first time since he'd arrived in the Mojave, Kohta grinned.


	6. Chapter 6: Saeko

**Author Notes: As before, I have no claim to either **_**Fallout: New Vegas**_**, or **_**High School of the Dead**_**. As before, a big thanks to Drgyen and Inconspicuous Llama for their beta work! **

Saeko stood over the bleeding man, and felt deeply confused. The blade of her katana had cut through the cheap steel of her opponent's machete far easier than the bones of the suddenly unarmed man's limbs. She'd had to put a substantial amount of force behind her last two swings, severing her enemy's left and right arms. As he had fallen at her feet, trying to staunch the bleeding from his right forearm with his left stump while frantically attempting to scramble away from her, Saeko had felt a wave of arousal so strong that she'd nearly collapsed. She hadn't felt so good since the morning at the shrine, when Takeshi had accepted her vicious nature, proving her attractiveness to her even while encouraging her desire for blood. But, that morning had left her glowing, full of self-confidence and strength; this latest encounter should have been at least as good, as it was her first time killing a real human, not to mention successfully defending her friends and companion! Instead, her joy turned sour as she saw the disgust on Kohta's face, and the fear. Her smile disappeared, and with it, the sexual and physical pleasure of inflicting pain on the foe.

She looked back down at her victim; he'd stopped trying to move away, and his breathing was beginning to slow. His skin began to turn pale even as she watched. Saeko sighed. Her father had taught her a warrior's code of honor, and the man at her foot had once been a warrior. Readjusting her hold on the katana's grip, she reached down and grabbed the lower rim of the motorcycle helmet that covered her enemy's head. Without paying any heed to the choking scream of pain he made, the last Busujima yanked her foe to his knees, before throwing his head back down towards the asphalt. The kneeling man moaned one last time in pain, before her sword detached his head from his neck, sending the freed skull still in its helm bouncing across the Mojave sands.

"He hadn't even washed his neck. How vulgar." Saeko calmly mused to herself.

Turning away from the mutilated corpse, Saeko was unsurprised to find the strange woman behind her. She'd clearly been watching for some time, and had seen the beheading. "Can I help you?" Saeko asked politely, in her accented English.

The strange American woman smiled. "Ah, so Kohta isn't the only English speaker! I thought you were paying too much attention to our conversations!" Her toothy grin revealed teeth stained by tobacco. Without any sort of change in her expression, the Courier abruptly changed the topic "Very nice sword-work there. You got right under his guard before he even realized you were moving."

The brief respectful nod, the nod of a craftsman recognizing a skilled act of labor, which the other woman gave her, further confused Saeko. Carefully schooling her face to display no sign of her internal distress, Saeko maintained the smooth self-assured exterior that her honor demanded as she contemplated the woman's words. Was she simply complementing her skill, one warrior to another? Or, had she seen the same glee that had sickened Kohta so? With another toothy grin, the Courier wandered away from the swordswoman, gently ambling towards the boy-soldier, who was crouched over his first kill, desperately trying to not throw up.

As Saeko watched the Courier raise Kohta to his feet, and rebuild his shattered self-image, she pondered Min Farshaw. She had shot first, and had forced the entire group into a potentially deadly situation; on the other hand, she had also prevented the not-THEM from overwhelming the puny defenses that her comrades had erected. She had also given them valuable information, and even now was helping Rei get medical care by transporting the injured girl back to whatever passed for civilization in this baking hellhole.

As Saya and Kohta embraced one another, Saeko thought about the desire, the fundamental need of humanity to not be alone. As she thanked the Courier graciously for a bottle of water, she recalled the feeling of separation that had cloaked her during her last year of school. All the other students, scurrying like so many insects, all ignorant of her true nature! She felt so much greater than all the puny boys and girls that surrounded her, for none could have stood against her had she decided to drop the mask of stoicism! Yet, like a leper, she had stood alone, apart from the teeming herd of humanity that had swarmed through the school halls before disappearing down the torn throats of THEM. Only Takeshi had ever approached her, an irregularity in that world. This world, however, was different. If even a tenth of those who clawed survival from the post-apocalyptic maw that the Mojave seemed to be had the same attitude as Min, then she, Saeko, no longer stood alone! And, if even a fiftieth part of the world had the same bloody skill, the same lust for battle as the Courier, then she, far from being alone, stood amongst her peers!

Her comrades, aside from Kohta, didn't have the same understanding of the world that she did. While the rest of the school sat paralyzed with dread as they listened to THEM feed via intercom, Saeko had stood calmly, and felt a rising euphoria in her soul as she retrieved her training weapon from her locker in the dojo. The End of Days had broken her chains, in a way that nobody in her group could possibly understand. Kohta had an inkling of the true bliss of power, but he was too frightened of it. "I'm weak too…" She muttered as she trudged along the road towards Novac. Up ahead, she saw a pair of rough looking men lounging against a battered fence, bantering with a woman wearing a straw hat and bloodstained shirt. Seeing the pistols hanging from their belts, Saeko checked her sword, making sure that it could emerge at a moment's notice, to once more taste blood.

As she grasped the hilt of her sword, she noticed the Courier shaking her head and glaring at her. Saeko exhaled heavily, before stepping back and releasing her weapon. Min walked out in front of the group, past the fuming swordswoman, with her arms at her sides, far away from the hatchet on her belt and the repeater on her back. Fortunately, neither were necessary; the men greeted her, and the woman began to talk to the Courier, apparently about prices. Did these people truly use bottlecaps as currency? "Apparently" Saeko thought, as Min counted out a number of shiny bits of metal, the bulk of which she gave to the woman, who apparently was the doctor they'd come to see. Her bloodstained garb didn't fill Saeko with confidence, but no better option had presented itself.

The Courier and the doctor shook hands, before walking away from one another, the doctor away into town, Min back towards the group. The two leather-clad men followed her, and took over litter duty from the visibly relieved bearers. Their gentle walk and firm grip of the metallic stretcher betrayed great familiarity with orderly work, suggesting that the doctor had no shortage of business.

"All right, Kohta and Saeko," Min began. "You are the only two English speakers in this group, which means that one of you needs to go with Rei, while the other needs to come with me."

Saeko wondered why it was necessary to split up. "Min-san, what advantage is there in dividing into two groups? Rei is our comrade; wouldn't it be proper for us all to be with her?"

Min seemed to have been expecting that question. "I'm glad you asked! I paid the doctor for the use of one of her rooms, as well as for Rei's treatment. However, her hired room is not large enough for all of you to stay there. So, two of you, including one English speaker, are going to go, to keep an eye on Rei, and to be there if she wakes up. Everybody else is going to come with me to the hotel by the dinosaur, where we can rent another room. So, who's going where?"

Takeshi turned to Saeko "Saeko-san, I'd like you to go with Min-san. While I trust her, I don't trust the people in this town. I think that you'd be better in closer spaces like a hotel than Kohta would be." Turning to Kohta, the young leader continued. "I don't mean to slight you, Kohta, but I'd like you to help me keep watch over Rei."

Kohta assured Takeshi that he'd be happy to keep watch over Rei, and Takeshi accepted his agreement at face value; Saeko noticed the reluctant tone of his consent, and smiled as Kohta's eyes drifted towards Saya, who was pretending not to notice him. Kohta's eyes snapped back to Takeshi. "We need more ammunition." Kohta noted in a professional tone. "If Saeko-san is going with Min-san, please make sure to bring that to her attention."

Saeko nodded, and with that, the group split apart. Takeshi and Kohta followed the litter, weapons slung over shoulders, while Saeko, Saya, Shizuka, and Alice followed Min as she hiked towards the dinosaur statue that towered over the small town.

As the small group approached the run-down motel that formed the nucleus of the settlement, Saeko caught up to the Courier, having to jog briefly to match the quick strider. "Min-san, is there any place in town where I can purchase ammunition for my comrades' weapons?"

Farshaw slowed, to Saeko's relief. "Yeah, in the belly of yon great lizard, there's a small general store run by a man named Cliff Barscoe; he should have more than enough ammunition for even Kohta. Tell you what: While I'm securing lodging, how about you go and deal with Mr. Barscoe?" Saeko nodded, informed the rest of the group about the change in plan, and asked her comrades to follow Min until she returned.

Crossing the courtyard as her allies disappeared into the motel's office, Saeko took a moment to look up at the sky. The once-vibrant blue had begun to darken as the hours had passed, and the sun now hung above the western horizon. The eastern sky had already begun to molt into indigo, and the one cloud still hanging in the south had acquired a vibrant orange corona. Despite the six o'clock hour, the sun's heat still beat down remorselessly on the parched desert, slamming into Saeko's still-tender skin. Looking down at the jangling bag full of bottle caps that Min had thrown at her as she walked away, Saeko wondered if there'd be enough money to buy a hat, or some clothing better suited to the arid wastes.

She walked up the rickety wooden stairs, and opened the door into the dinosaur. As music wafted out from the interior, Saeko stepped through the frame, and stood for a moment to let her eyes adjust to the dim light. As she stood in the daylight, staring into the dingy room, an overly cheerful voice boomed out from behind a barely visible counter. "Hey, welcome! You're just in time to buy a t-rex! You got here at an excellent time; they're going fast!"

Frowning, Saeko's eyes finally revealed a black man standing behind a now-visible counter, wearing the manic smile of a merchant desperate to make a sale. Remembering the lessons her father had taught her about dealing with those who buy and sell, Saeko strode forward, with her most aristocratic expression on display and each step a claim on the territory she occupied. "Mr. Barscoe? I have not come to buy a 't-rex', unless such an object can be discharged from a firearm. I am here to acquire supplies for my comrades, specifically ammunition and clothing. Do you stock such items, in addition to clutter?"

As the powerful young woman strode forward, the merchant backed away slightly, as if pushed by an undeniable pressure. His hollow smile still pulled at his lips, but it seemed almost completely detached from the hunted expression that the rest of his face had adopted. "Well, yeah, I have plenty of ammunition of all types, but I don't have any clothing for sale, except for a hat a traveler left here by accident. You can have it for… Five caps?"

Saeko lifted an eyebrow. "Three" she stated, in her most bored voice, as if such a price was an incontrovertible fact. She accompanied her warm-up offer with an icy look that cowed the shopkeeper.

"Ah, sure! Here you go!" Cliff gently pushed a battered grey billed cap with attached goggles across the counter. Without bothering to hand over the caps, Saeko decided to begin bargaining in earnest.

"What caliber ammunition do you have in stock?"

"Well…" The proprietor of the converted gift shop pulled a grubby, much annotated, inventory from his shirt pocket "take a look."

Saeko gazed at the somewhat greasy sheet of paper in her hand, and gently unfolded it. The word "AMMO" was written in ink across the top of the paper, with two columns of numbers beneath it. The first was the type of ammunition, called "TYPE", and the second was the attendant prices, noted as "CAPS". Scanning down the list, she found the 12-gauge ammunition that Takeshi used with his Ithaca shotgun as well as the 9mm rounds that Saya's Lugar used, but not the 7.62 mm rounds that Rei used and Kohta needed. "Do you stock any 7.62 ammunition?" Saeko asked, looking up at Cliff through her bangs. He relaxed slightly. "No, sorry, they're almost completely unheard of in the Mojave." Saeko nodded absently, and looked back down at the prices. The 9mm rounds were cheap, only two caps per bullet, but the 12-gauge was much more expensive, at twelve caps per shell. Min had only given her a limited number of caps.

"How much longer will you be open?" inquired Saeko.

"I close up at nine-thirty. Come back whenever!"

Saeko left the dinosaur statue with her new hat pulled firmly down over her long purple hair, three caps the lighter, and walked back down the wooden stairs. Saya was standing on the second floor balcony of the hotel, and waved down at Saeko, before entering the room directly behind her. Saeko soon followed her comrade into the motel.

Two beds occupied most of the space in the rundown space, and a variety of chairs and a table took up much of the rest. From the bathroom at the far end of the room, Shizuka's poor singing could be heard. Alice lay on the most distant bed, dead to the world. Saya paced across the room, clearly irritated about something. 'Perhaps she's worried about Kohta-kun's virtue?' a laughing voice echoed through Saeko's mind, drawing a slight smile to her lips. Min, the one paying for the room, was sitting on the least disreputable of the chairs by the table; in front of her, two disassembled pistols lay, their components spread across the scarred wood.

"Oh, hi Saeko!" Min greeted her without looking up from her examination of the pistols' innards. "You're back just in time. I think that Saya was about to explode from having nobody to talk to." The Courier laughed, before looking up at the swordswoman. "Nice hat, by the way."

"Why, thank you, Min-san. My skin isn't used to this much sun; I felt like more protection was in order."

The Courier smiled at the pink sunburns across the younger woman's cheekbones and nose. "Well, at least your ridiculously long hair protected the back of your neck just fine!"

"My hair is not overly long! Just because my hair isn't boyishly short doesn't make it ridiculous."

Min visibly suppressed her amusement. "Anyway, I don't see you carrying any munitions. Did Cliff not have any to sell to poor little you?"

Saeko shook her head "He had plenty of ammunition, but not the type that Kohta needs. And the ammunition that Takeshi uses is going to be expensive." A slight frown marred her still-pale brow. "On the topic of finances, what do you want in exchange for the money you have given us so far? I appreciate your generosity, but it isn't right to take advantage of your hospitality."

The Courier grinned at that last bit. "Oh, Saeko, you are going to become a great friend of mine! For example, tomorrow you and I are going out gecko hunting!"

For lack of a better response, Saeko nodded. Min turned away, and reassembled the two pistols with amazing speed.

Turning back to the swordswoman, Min pointed at the smaller of the two. "This is a 9mm pistol I took off the coyote-wearing man back out in the desert; I have seventeen bullets for it. The other is a 10mm pistol, which came from the legionnaire you so helpfully disarmed." Min waited for a moment, waiting for something; Saeko stared back patiently. Heaving a sigh of annoyance, Min continued. "I only have three bullets for it. The 9mm uses the same load as Saya's pistol. I'm going to give the 9mm pistol to Kohta the next time we meet. The 10mm pistol, I'm giving to you to sell, along with the ammunition. Along with your share of the profit of tomorrow's hunt, the money I gave you, and whatever other money we can make, you'll have enough to reequip your group. After that, Saeko, you will be helping me, as I have helped you."

The Courier's light demeanor fell away like a clay mask, leaving behind a steely visage, solid with determination "I helped you and yours survive; you and yours shall help me with my revenge in exchange."

As Saeko looked at Min's face, a face that promised an inexorable and bloody vengeance, she felt a slight warmth between her legs, and for a brief moment, screams echoed in her ears. The Courier turned away, and the moment disappeared.

As the battered clock hanging from the wall ticked its way toward 8:52, Saeko set out again from the motel. As she approached the stairs to the gift shop, her fighter's instincts began to tingle. Swiftly moving to the side and turning around, she nearly ran into a man who had been walking nearly silently behind her. From the crimson beret on his head to the scuffed combat boots on his feet, everything about the man indicated both a great ability and ready capacity for extreme violence. As he passed her, the man briefly looked at her, but his brief glare seemed to penetrate deep into her eyes. The two stood for a moment, like two unfamiliar predators sizing each other up. The moment passed after a timeless moment; the man turned his back, and climbed the crumbling stairs and disappeared inside the dinosaur.

Saeko waited for a moment, before following the man inside, and closing the door behind her.


	7. Chapter 7: Min

Author Notes: As before, I have no claim to either _Fallout: New Vegas_, or _High School of the Dead_. As before, a big thanks to Drgyen and Inconspicuous Llama for their beta work!

Min watched the door close behind the purple-haired swordswoman as she left once more, heading back to the gift shop. Glancing up at the clock and noting the hour, Min was unsurprised to see that Saya had joined Alice on the bed. It was almost cute how the young girl had curled into the older girl's belly, while the pink-haired teen had unconsciously embraced the child. The only flaw that marred the tranquil picture was the appalling naiveté of both children. Neither Alice, nor, more unforgivably, Saya, had thought to post any sort of guard or take any other sort of precaution against attack. Saya hadn't even checked the location of her pistol; it was all the way on the other side of the room! If someone chose to attack she'd be overwhelmed before she could even reach it. No, both sleepers had completely neglected their own defense, and relied entirely on her skill and desire to protect them.

"Saeko wouldn't have been so stupid." Min muttered as she headed towards the door. Despite the fact that the sword-wielding teenager was almost the same age as the girl curled up on the bed, the difference in maturity was unmistakable, making one a woman, and the other a child.

Another horrible refrain sliced through the primitive soundproofing Min had erected around the bathroom door. "Speaking of children… That blonde is the least mature of all…" Min licked her lips. The Wasteland didn't coddle weakness; if Shizuka didn't learn that fundamental lesson soon, she'd be snapped up like a molerat in the path of a pack of hunting deathclaws. Briefly, Min wondered how much she could make if she sold Shizuka to the Legion, before shoving the thought out of mind.

"Still, I wonder what she'd sound like if she screamed. I bet it'd sound prettier than her singing." As the leather-clad woman closed the door and walked down the motel's staircase, she amused herself with happy thoughts of Shizuka writhing under bloody hands.

As she reached the courtyard Min regretfully returned her attention to the business at hand. Crossing the cracked asphalt, Min made her way along the side of the motel to the room reserved for Manny. Stepping over the remnants of the curb, the Courier knocked on the weather-beaten door as loudly as possible, in case the ex-soldier had already gone to bed. He hadn't, and promptly answered the door.

"You know, there really isn't any need to break my door down." Vargas said mildly, with a faint tone of amusement.

"Oh, shut it. You might've been asleep, and I didn't feel like waiting for your tired bones." Min bantered back. "In any case, I need to talk to you. I have whiskey, if you're in need of an incentive."

"Well, in that case, come right on in! I'll get some cups." The soldier walked towards the table near the bed where several empty cups of various sizes stood guard over the mattresses that covered the floor.

"Are you hosting a sleepover party, Manny? Why wasn't I invited?" Min asked, as she nearly tripped over one of the pieces of soiled bedding that filled much of the unoccupied space.

"A few of my old gang were coming through town a week and a half ago, and needed a place to crash. And while none were as pretty as you, they were much quieter."

Min made a mock offended face and punched Manny in the arm. The preliminaries settled, she removed the whiskey from her backpack, and poured a generous amount into each cup. Both drinkers settled back and enjoyed the fiery liquid.

As Manny savored the alcohol, Min wondered how best to describe the bizarre events that had occurred at the test site. Briefly, she considered concocting an elaborate tale that explained the sudden appearance of seven strangers, five of whom couldn't speak English, before deciding that the absolute, unvarnished truth would have to satisfy Vargas.

If it didn't, she'd have to get what she wanted some other way...

"So, do you know of anybody who has a working prewar auto engine?" Min casually asked, as she refilled the cups with amber fluid.

With the air of one indulging a child, Manny shook his head. "Old Lady Gibson might have some idea, or even a complete engine hidden in that junkyard of hers. Why do you want to know, Mini?"

In one smooth movement, the Courier drew her hatchet, and hurled it through the air. As the melee weapon bounced off the wall behind Manny, leaving a noticeable dent, Min fumed. "I hate that nickname! Don't you dare call me Mini! It's 'Min', or 'Farshaw', or 'Courier' if you must! Call me Mini again, and I'll make sure you never eat anything again but soup!"

Manny barely blinked as the weapon soared past his left ear. "Temper, temper!" He shook his head, amused at the Courier's childish hatred for the nickname he'd given her. "Anyway, why do you want to know? You find something interesting up at the test site?"

Like a lightning bolt from the clear blue sky, Min's sudden fit of rage passed. As she took another sip of whiskey, a grin crept over her face. "To say the least, Manny, I did. Also, your ghoul problem should be solved."

With a look first of relief, then confusion, ending in disbelief, Manny Vargas listened to the Courier recount the bizarre episode that had resulted in seven Japanese apocalypse survivors, their dog, and a damaged military-grade vehicle entering the Mojave, decimating a horde of feral ghouls and four Legion assassins in the process.

"So, whatcha think? I bet you never thought that dimension hopping schoolchildren could be a force to be reckoned with, didja?" Min offered the bewildered man her cutest smile.

For a moment, Manny just stared at her, silently questioning her sanity. Then, surprisingly, he shrugged. "Got any more whiskey? I'm going to need to drink a lot more before you start making sense."

An hour later, as the minute hand on Manny's abused wall clock crept towards 10:15, Min made her way around mattresses and debris towards the illuminated terminal on the back desk. Behind her, sprawled across his bed where she'd deposited him, Manny snored loudly as he slept, drunk to insensibility. While Min hadn't come with the intention of scouting Manny's room for information, the opportunity was far too good to pass up. If he had any information on her attackers, it was almost certainly stored on the terminal; there was no other reason why Vargas would have gone to the trouble of fixing a terminal besides wanting it for an info-dump.

The terminal had no password, and had only one entry stored. "Khan Hospitality" Min whispered to herself. The men who'd assisted the prick in the checkered suit had worn Khan leathers, and the Khans frequently hired themselves out as mercenaries. "So, you hosted my killers, did you, Manny?"

Making her way back over to the slumped Vargas and retrieving her hatchet from the floor, Min weighed her options. On one hand, she had a legitimate cause against Manny Vargas; he'd sheltered the men who'd tried to murder her – on the other, he hadn't known anything about the job from which they were returning, nor had he been party to the actual attempt. All he'd done was help some of his extended family on their long trip north. She could understand the desire to help family, and she understood loyalty.

She shoved the haft of her hatchet back through her belt, and left the room.

Walking out under the night sky, Min was surprised to see Saeko sitting on the stairs leading up to the room she'd rented. The younger woman was idly playing with a bright red beret, spinning it back and forth on her fingers while staring out towards the horizon, dead to the world.

Min stepped from the shadow of the motel's overhanging balcony. "How was your shopping trip, Saeko?" Hopefully the girl hadn't snapped from previously suppressed stress or similar.

Saeko jerked to her feet, and had halfway drawn her sword before apparently recognizing Min. As she sheathed her blade she let out a bit of a nervous giggle, rather incongruous with her generally stoic personality. A slight smile played over lips as she looked down at the Courier, who stood at the foot of the stairs. Min wondered if she'd been the only one to go drinking tonight.

"I'm sorry, Min-san. You surprised me; I thought that you were still in the room, asleep by now." Saeko's elegant lips, already smiling, curved up a bit more. "I wonder, did you leave just to avoid Shizuka's singing? If so, I sympathize; I never could find a kind way to convey my feelings about her music."

The Courier laughed as she began climbing the stairs, keeping a hand on the rusted rail for balance. "It's pretty awful, isn't it? Anyway, I had to go talk to the guy who'd hired me to kill the ghouls up at the test site. We both started drinking, and… Well, anyway, how did your little shopping trip go? I'm surprised to see you out so late!" Min reached the same level as Saeko, and sat down. After waiting a moment, she pulled at the other woman's arm, encouraging her to sit. The two women relaxed on the stairs, and looked out over the wall that surrounded Novac, across the desert.

"The pistol sold well. I got four hundred and eighty caps for it, and another six for the bullets. I decided not to buy anything; I'm no munitions expert, so I'm passing the job on to Kohta. He will know what we need better than I." Saeko continued to look out towards the horizon as she spoke. "On a different topic, Min-san, could you tell me a bit more about the Legion? I would like to know a bit more about the new enemies that I've earned."

Saeko's biting tone indicated substantial annoyance with someone or something. Min wondered if she was peeved at being conscripted into her struggle with the Legion, before deciding that it didn't particularly matter.

"They're the only power worth talking about east of the Colorado. The Legion is the product of a decade and a half of constant intertribal warfare, which resulted in the forced assimilation of eighty-six tribes into a single entity led by a warlord named Caesar. According to the Followers out of the Boneyard, Caesar was once a Follower of the Apocalypse, who went east to explore and help primitive tribes."

"Pardon me, Min-san," Saeko interrupted. "But what is a 'Follower of the Apocalypse?'"

Min groaned, and rubbed her eyes. "Sorry Saeko, I forget that you're not from around here. The Followers of the Apocalypse are a faction committed to preventing another apocalypse from occurring. To achieve this, they use their scientific and medical knowledge and pre-war technologies to support and educate societies. They're big champions of the little people, of the tribals and the poor. They're good people, which makes it all the more surprising that a shithead like Caesar would have once been a Follower. But I suppose the Followers would know their own…"

Min paused, and removed a cigarette from the crumpled pack crammed in her side pouch, and lit up. Saeko waited patiently as Min puffed once, then twice, before resuming the story.

"So, the Legion is an awful institution. All women are chattel, slaves and property of either their husbands or owners, and any sickly or weak child is killed in infancy. Any tribe annexed into the Legion is broken apart; the women are collared as slaves while the men are broken again and again, brainwashed into becoming faceless legionnaires. The only good thing I can say about the Legion is that they bring order. Any raiders they capture, any drug smugglers they find, are crucified on telephone poles. While they're incredibly barbaric, Arizona is safe."

Min paused again and finished her cigarette, before grinding the butt against the cement stair.

"Regardless of this one redeemable aspect, I hate the Legion. My father was a New Canaanite missionary who settled in Klamath, where I'm from. The only time I ever saw him weep was when he heard the news that New Canaan had fallen to Legion-allied tribes. We all knew what had happened when the city walls were breached."

Min got a distant look on her face as she stared out across the desert towards the far-away glow of the New Vegas lights, glittering on the horizon.

"I saw what it must've been like a few days ago. There used to be a town named Nipton about thirty miles south of here. It wasn't a nice town – I hated making deliveries there. The Mayor was a pimp, and most of the clientele were raiders. The entire town was a festering sore on the Mojave. Regardless, they didn't deserve what the Legion did to them; nobody does. I came through on my way here, and the entire town had been put to the sword. The only survivors were two raiders who had been intentionally left alive; even so, one of them will never walk again. The luckier citizens were butchered where they stood, while the least lucky were burnt alive on pyres, or nailed to crosses. A few were hauled off in slave chains, but those I count as worse than dead."

The Courier shook her head, trying to clear the whimpers of the crucified soldiers from her ears, and the smells of burnt hair and flesh from her nose. The pain on her face faded to a harsh scowl. At this point Min barely even remembered her audience, or the question that had prompted this little moment: She just felt the need to unburden the painful memories from her soul. Saeko sat and watched the Courier revisit a painful memory, watched her suffering through shadowed and unreadable eyes.

"The Legion hadn't left yet; I saw them standing in front of the old town hall, an officer and the contubernum under his command. I also saw that the people of the crosses were still alive, still writhing on their nails. I walked down the center of the road, repeater in hand, and gave what help I could to each of the victims. There was no way they could survive, not with their wounds and the amount of blood they'd lost. I thought that they'd prefer a quick bullet rather than a drawn-out death on a telephone pole. The Legionnaires just watched me as I came closer and closer, not saying a word."

Min's face twisted, as she tried to contain the torrent of primal emotion the memory of the soldiers of the Crimson King evoked. When a measure of tranquility had returned to her visage, the Courier continued her story.

"When I finally reached the square when the barbarians stood, the officer explained that this was Legion justice, that these people had brought their punishment down on themselves for their sins. He told me to spread word of the fate of Nipton, and warned me to leave the Mojave before he put a slave collar on me himself. Then, he and his men turned and walked away, as if nothing of any importance had happened. Maybe, to them, nothing of importance had, and this was just a day in the life. I couldn't stand for it. As they left, I followed them to the edge of town. Their leader turned and began to speak, perhaps to make some pithy insult. I put three bullets into him and another two into the only other legionnaire with a firearm. I ran back through Nipton, the other seven legionnaires close behind me. I lost them out on the dried lake west of town, when a troop of giant ants attacked the legionnaires. I hid out in the desert and waited until the legion-men had given up and left. The assassins probably left Caesar's camp as soon as the surviving legionnaires reported back."

An uneasy silence fell over the two women. Finally, Min looked back at Saeko, her tanned face twisted into a wan smile. "Does that answer your question, Saeko?"

Stoic as ever, Saeko nodded. "I had another motive beside curiosity, Min-san. When I was at Barscoe-san's shop I encountered a man who wore this beret, carried a rifle, and had eyes similar to Kohta-kun's in the midst of combat. I followed him upstairs, and found a vantage point over the desert, where he apparently keeps watch. He was surprised to see me there but calmed down once he realized that I couldn't be a member of the Legion. He asked me to do him a favor."

Saeko waited a moment to see if Min would say anything. When the Courier indicated that she should continue, Saeko resumed.

"Recently his wife had been kidnapped by the Legion, and sold into slavery. According to the man, someone in Novac helped them, and sold his wife. He wants revenge, and asked me to help. He said that if I found the person who had betrayed his wife I should have them follow me in front of the dinosaur while he's on duty, wearing his beret."

Well, that explained the beret at least. "Have you got any idea how you're going to find your target? Are you going to try to find the mark at all?" Min inquired.

Saeko nodded. "It'd be the honorable thing to hunt down such a traitor. Plus, having a sniper in my debt might help the chances of my group's survival. As to how, I was hoping to enlist your services."

Well, there went tomorrow's gecko hunt. "What services would those be?"

Saeko gave Min a mildly feral smile. "Lock picking and interrogation. I want your help getting into the safe in the motel's front office, and I want you to ask around town on my behalf. I don't want our target to become suspicious of me."

Min smiled back. It was good to see that Saeko could plan as well as kill. "It seems to me that I'm doing all of the legwork; what would I get in exchange?"

Saeko paused. "I can't pay you; all the money I have is because of you. I'm already deep in your debt, so I cannot promise a further favor. I have nothing of value but my sword to my name, and my blade is too valuable for such a small bargain. However, consider this offer: In exchange for your help unmasking the traitor, the money you have already given me, the medical care and shelter you've provided for Rei and the rest of my group, and the help you gave us with the ghouls, I will swear myself to your service."

That was not what Min had been expecting. "What about the rest of your group? What if they chose to go elsewhere?"

Saeko gave the older woman a level look. "Then we shall part ways, though I doubt that they'd voluntarily leave me behind. However, I intend to propose a further bargain with the town: Several members of my group, especially Shizuka and Alice, are not combatants, and don't deserve to be dragged across the wastes; further, Rei needs time to recuperate from her injuries. Saya and Kohta will want to stay here with Alice, and Takeshi will want to stay with Rei. If Novac agrees to shelter and feed my group, Takeshi, Rei, and Kohta can help with the defenses, and Shizuka can help the doctor. Everyone benefits, and I'll be free to accompany you."

Min paused, and thought for a moment. Then, with a slow cadence, each word heavily weighted, Min asked "Saeko Busujima, do you understand what you are promising? If you swear yourself to me, and break your oath, there will be a reckoning. I ask once more: Are you willing to follow me to the ends of the wastes, no matter what? Can you forsake all for me?"

The last scion of the ancient Busujima clan met Min's eyes. Of the calm, aloof personality of Saeko, there was no trace; staring back at the Courier was a line of warriors stretching a thousand years back, all of whom had sworn themselves to long-vanished emperors, all of whom had fought and died loyally at their liege-lord's command. "By the honor of my name, and the honor of my house, I understand the burden I take upon myself voluntarily, and commit myself fully towards carrying it. So long as you draw breath and desire my service, Min Farshaw, I shall follow you and serve you. My sword for you; my life for you."

Both women shivered briefly, as though a tangible weight had fallen across their shoulders with the power of their words, though neither broke eye contact.

Min paused, toeing the Rubicon, before coming to a decision. With an impish smile, the tension of the moment disappeared. "Deal! Oh Saeko, the places we'll go and the things you'll have to carry! I'll take a look at the hotel safe before going to bed. If I don't find anything, we'll start working tomorrow; if I do, we'll make an end to this tonight. Wait for me in the room."

In the mouth of the slowly crumbling dinosaur, Boone counted the bullets and hours, and looked across the wastes, hunting for crimson.

At a ruined gas station north of Novac, a second band of Legion Assassins checked their weapons, preparing for tomorrow's assault on the Profligate and her allies.

The old REPCONN test site turned into a war zone once again, as a party of Nightkin searching for Stealthboys battled the Bright Brotherhood through the dark halls, neither side willing to retreat.

Lying on a cot, Rei slept the dreamless sleep of the anesthetized, free for the night from pain. Sleepless, Takeshi kept guard over her, as Kohta sat beside the door, ready for any sort of attack.

In the ruins of Boulder City, the Khan-NCR stalemate dragged on, as both sides waited for the other to make a move.

And in New Vegas, after a long trip through the sewers beneath the Outer Vegas ruins and Freeside, an exhausted Benny collapsed on the bed in his suite, dreaming that he'd just come into power.

Over it all, the stars and moon stared down at the ruined earth below, as they had for years uncountable.

Author Notes: Fun stuff so far? Is my work pleasing to the audience? Glad to hear. Anyway, Drgyen pointed out that Min's story might cause a small bit of confusion, specifically where she describes the clients of Nipton as raiders and soldiers. The raiders she's referring to are the Powder Gangers; Min, who has good karma, has no truck with the ex-cons, and views them as simple raiders, not a true faction.

That's all!


	8. Chapter 8: Kohta

**Author Notes: As before, I have no claim to either **_**Fallout: New Vegas**_**, or **_**High School of the Dead**_**. As before, a big thanks to Drgyen and Inconspicuous Llama for their beta work! **

The first rays of morning light, sliding through gaps in the boards that covered shattered windows, woke Kohta. Dragging himself away from the refuge of dreams, the teen regretfully returned to the Wasteland. Rubbing the sleep from his eyes as he searched for his glasses, Kohta noticed that Takeshi was still awake, staring at the sleeping form of his former girlfriend. Kohta found his glasses and got to his feet, his movements stiff after a night of sleeping on the doctor's floor.

"Did you get any sleep at all last night, Takeshi?" Kohta asked, as he checked his weapon for damage or dirt. "If you didn't, today's gonna be rough on you."

Takeshi jolted, as if he'd forgotten that he wasn't alone in the dusty room. With an awkward laugh Takeshi admitted that, not only had he not gotten any sleep, he'd hardly even blinked the entire night. Kohta sighed, realizing that there was nothing that could be done about Takeshi's inevitable crash. "Has she woken up yet?"

"No, but the doctor said we should try to wake her up in the morning. Besides, Min-san only paid for a single night in this room…" The two boys looked at the sleeping girl. Compared to how she'd looked only ten hours ago she was vastly improved. The pallor of her skin had reddened to a healthy tone, and the wounds inflicted by the ghouls had been disinfected and sewn up. The injection of more stimpacks had rapidly increased the rate of skin and muscle repair, and much of the damage had already healed. Finally, the dehydration and bruises she'd acquired as a result of the trek to Novac had been fixed by the healing effects of the stimpacks, and an IV drip-bag. Taken together, Rei was nearly healthy, and there was no reason not to wake her.

Takeshi leaned over the bed, and began to gently shake Rei, while repeating her name aloud. Privately, Kohta suspected that she'd wake up faster with a shout in the ears and a punch to the arm, but wisely kept such advice to himself.

Rei's hazel eyes slowly opened, and a smile bloomed as she saw Takeshi looking down on her, a protective and relieved smile on his face. "Takeshi-kun…" She murmured, as the happy pair descended into a private little world. Kohta idly wished he was back with Saya, wherever she and the rest of the girls had gone.

The tender moment was disturbed when Dr. Straus hammered on the door to the room. "The sun's risen and the bloatflies are out! Time for you to leave!" As the good doctor stomped away through the crooked house the room's occupants sat in silence. When the distant thumps faded, the three teens looked at each other and exchanged disbelieving looks at the doctor's lack of social skills or tact. Slowly, Rei got to her feet, supported by Takeshi, while Kohta policed up their meager belongings.

The teens squinted in the mid-morning sunlight as they left the house. Already, the air was shimmering with heat, with visible distortions rising above the broken asphalt of the ancient road. Slowly, they walked towards the looming dinosaur, and the motel that wrapped around its base, where their comrades had stayed the last night.

Kohta walked ahead of Takeshi and Rei, who walked side by side. The two were almost, but not quite, holding hands as they went, still shy in their affections. Kohta's thoughts drifted away from the environment and the troubles ahead, and returned to the memory of a rare smile from a certain pinkette. Sighing, he imagined the bliss of running his unworthy hands down the long pink tails that spilled over her shoulders, down to her waist. So distracting was this fantasy that, as he turned the corner of the motel, he almost ran into a man coming out the opposite direction.

"Watch it, punk!" the bearded man roared, shoving Kohta backwards, the joints of his battered and much repaired leather armor creaking at the exertion.

Kohta stumbled back and nearly fell over as he frantically sought to regain his balance. Pulling himself upright, he glared right back at the larger man. For a moment, the same part of his personality that had threatened Shido with a nail gun, the same part that had exalted in the world's end, rose to the fore. His hand itched for his rifle, but before he could reach for it, the saner parts of his mind dragged the Beast back into its chains, out of sight and out of mind. "I apologize, sir. I wasn't watching where I was going." Kohta said as politely as he could.

The bearded man looked at him for another moment, before grunting. "Just make sure it doesn't happen again." He muttered as he walked out of the motel's courtyard, apparently eager to be on the road. Behind him, a pack animal followed.

For a brief moment, Takeshi, Kohta, and Rei all stared in confusion and shock at the two headed cow that ambled after the traveler. It was sizable, at least six hundred pounds, with a dun orange coat; Its udder looked grossly swollen and discolored, and two heads swayed placidly side to side. One head sniffed Kohta as it ambled past, checking to see if the boy had any roughage stored away in his pockets.

As the cow and man walked away from them, the three expatriates nearly collapsed against the crumbling stucco that covered the motel's cinderblock wall. Kohta felt a deep sense of vertigo, and fought his nausea. At that moment, Kohta fully understood just how far away he was from home. It felt like an empty void had opened in his chest, just behind his ribs, and it was trying to suck him away, trying to hollow him out. For only a second Kohta was tempted to let it, to embrace the soft and merciful void. "Saya-chan…" he murmured "Gotta stay for Saya-chan. Gotta protect her. Can't leave."

Kohta shook off the last vestiges of that horribly empty feeling and looked over at his friends. Rei was gently weeping, and Takeshi was doing the best he could to comfort her. Kohta was about to join Takeshi in his effort when a sudden shout from up the road startled him. The bearded man was yelling, something about an attack, a death. Kohta cautiously advanced up the road, and saw what the man had reacted to: A middle-aged woman, dressed in somewhat-shabby clothing, was sprawled across the broken cement of the ruined pavement, an entry hole in her neck clearly visible. The exit could be seen from the other side, in a brilliant spray of blood that had already dried, and begun to attract flies.

As the shock apparently wore off, the wastelander clicked his tongue at his pack-cow, and resumed his journey. The cow actually stepped on the dead woman's leg on its way through, something the wastelander either didn't see or didn't care about. Within minutes, the traveler had left the town's outskirts, heading north on the ruins of the old highway.

Shaking his head at the disregard for human life, Kohta turned back to his friends. "A woman died out here last night; someone shot her down, and I don't think she ever saw them. We can't let that be us – we need to stay frosty, all the time." Takeshi and Rei both nodded.

"We need to find the girls." Takeshi said, and the small group turned back to the hotel.

Min, Saeko, Shizuka, Alice, and, most importantly to Kohta, Saya were already outside, sitting in a shadow and watching the world go by.

"Big brother!" Alice yelled, running towards Kohta as fast as her legs could carry her, and wrapping her arms around his legs as soon as she dived into his feet.

"Alice-chan!" For a moment, Kohta felt an anxiety that he had not even noticed lift away from his shoulders. The child Takeshi had rescued had become the little sister for the entire group, but to Kohta, she seemed almost more like a daughter. As he knelt in the dust, returning the little girl's embrace, Kohta felt the warm paternal feeling of a father reunited with his child. The void and anxieties of the world discarded for the moment, Kohta practically luxuriated in the warm emotions.

Finally, the surrogate-father/daughter moment ended, and Kohta stood, picking Alice up as he ascended. With Alice on his shoulders, Kohta walked over to the shadow where his friends waited, his eyes drawn irresistibly to the brilliant pink of his beloved's hair.

Her hazel eyes met his hungry stare. He smiled a smile that still held a component of the puppy-like adoration that had defined his relationship with Saya throughout the years of school. The enforced maturity of the last few weeks was also present in his smile, honed to a more mature edge of a man who has seen the end of life, and thus understands how fleeting life truly is. Her smile was internal, suppressed under a small frown and an affectionate, nearly whispered, "Baka…"

As Takeshi, Min, and Saeko spoke, Kohta and Saya moved away from the rest of the group, further along the motel wall.

"I missed you, Saya-san." Kohta spoke first, his serious voice undermined by the enthusiasm of his words and his grin. As the girl on his back fidgeted, he laughed, and continued. "I missed Alice-chan too!" A more pleased squirm followed.

"Baka-Kohta, did you think that I'd miss someone like you!" Saya's hollow, faux-irritated reply masked the truth of her emotions to nobody, as the simultaneous pull of one towards the other would have been evident to even the most ignorant of passers-by, were any to wander through the courtyard.

The two sat side by side, barely touching as if by coincidence, with Alice between them, nearly napping. A man wearing a red hat left a hotel room to their left, and walked out into the courtyard, slinging a rifle and a backpack over his shoulder as he went. Dismissing the young pair after a cursory look, he strode across the shattered pavement towards the leaders of the group, and joined the discussion.

The desert heat combined with the night's long watch soothed Kohta into a contented numbness, a pleasant feeling that he savored as the minutes passed. Finally, some sort of consensus was reached, and Min headed towards the dinosaur, Takeshi in tow. Saeko, followed by the grim hat-wearing man, returned to the shadowed patch, where Shizuka had bounced to her feet at her approach, pulling Rei in her wake. As the swordswoman beckoned to them, Saya shook Kohta towards wakefulness, and the pair, along with Alice, walked back towards the others.

"This is Boone-san. He will be accompanying us." Saeko introduced the stranger who towered over her, speaking in Japanese. The man in question seemed to recognize his name, and glared down at the back of Saeko's head from behind his mirrored sunglasses. For one absurd moment, as Kohta followed Boone's glare towards Saeko's crown, he wondered where Saeko had found such an ugly hat. After spending a few seconds contemplating the incongruous headpiece Kohta forced his attention back to her words.

"He is a former member of the military of Min-san's homeland. He agreed to help us after Min-san and I did him a favor last night. He doesn't speak Japanese, and doesn't seem to enjoy talking very much anyway. However, he is an excellent sniper, and so a worthy ally." Saeko continued her introduction. Kohta was not surprised to learn the man was ex-military; he had the look and the stance of a highly-trained warrior, and apparently the attitude to match.

Alice, however, somehow failed to pick up on the intimidating feel of Boone's very presence, and giggled at the grim-faced sniper, attracting a blank-faced stare from the tall man. Kohta decided that Boone actually might look amusing, with the almost-constipated scowl that seemed engrained on his brow, if one could ignore the near-tangible aura of menace. As Kohta stepped forward to apologize on her behalf, Alice surprised everybody there by greeting the stone-faced killer, in English no less!

"Hi Mr. Boone! I like your hat! Red's my favorite color!"

Kohta turned on his young charge and struggled to control his surprise and irritation. After schooling his features into a wide grin, he crouched in front of the child. "Alice-chan? You speak English? Why did you never tell us!"

The little girl turned an innocent smile on the teenager, as Boone silently watched the two. "My Papa taught me! Before he…" The smile ran off her face as she recalled the last time she saw her father, blood staining his white shirt and a handkerchief concealing his face. Tears began to pool in the corners of her eyes, and Kohta was filled with the paternal need to make things right, to stop her suffering.

Before Kohta could move, still stunned by Alice's unexpected fluency, Boone, of all people, stepped closer to the weeping girl. Even as Kohta wrapped his arms around her, the sniper put a single, calloused, hand on top of Alice's head, gently but irresistibly tilting her head upwards, until her tearful eyes met the hard, concealed stone-like eyes embedded in a craggy face.

A potent silence filled the space around the small group, as Kohta and Alice waited. Then, with an almost completely unemotional delivery, Boone shared these sage words: "Sometimes, death is better than survival." And, with that, Boone nodded, and stepped away. Alice was not reassured by those words, and hid her face in Kohta's shoulder.

Kohta glared at an unimpressed Boone, trying to convey his anger through the sunglasses and hot desert air.

Saeko reclaimed the group's attention with a small, ladylike cough. Speaking in Japanese, she began to explain her plan. "Well, another English speaker is a valuable asset. This will help our group embed in the local population more quickly."

"Embedding, Saeko-san? Are we not moving along and leaving Novac?" Rei asked, brows knit in confusion.

"Not entirely, Rei-chan. Sad to say, we'll be dividing up for a short time. This new land is vicious and dangerous, and not all of us are combatants. This town, Novac, will be a safe area for those unskilled in combat, for the time being." Saeko explained.

"Essentially, Takeshi-kun and I are concerned about the chances of survival of Shizuka-san, Alice-chan, and Saya-chan. Furthermore, Rei-chan, Takeshi wants you to have a bit more time to recover from your injuries. However, we are all in Min-san's debt; without her help, and her money, we would certainly still be at that infested ruin, and might even be dead." Saeko paused, and looked around the little circle of faces, all of whom showed signs of agreement. Shizuka was the exception, as her attention had been drawn to a pair of circling vultures. Boone stood behind her shoulder, face as blank as a stone wall, betraying no reaction thus far. Kohta wondered what he was thinking about, or if he had been distracted like Shizuka by passing birds.

"That said, I will accompany Min-san, and will assist her in persecuting her enemies." Saeko's lips curved slightly, apparently at the thought of the bloodshed to come. The rest of the group stared at the purple-haired young lady, silently expressing consternation at her imminent departure.

"And… You've discussed this with Takeshi?" Kohta inquired, in as calm a tone as he could. Saeko turned towards the still chubby boy.

"Yes, Kohta-kun, I have. After detailing my reasons, he has given me his blessing." For just a moment, Kohta could almost see a shadow hanging over the older girl's face, as her lips lost their smiling edge. "I regret having to leave him, as well as the rest of my friends, but I have sworn an oath; even if I hadn't, the honor of my father and family would have demanded such an arrangement."

"Well, what are we supposed to do, then?" Barked Saya "Just sit here and watch the world go by?"

Saeko shook her head, her humor restored. "No, Saya-chan." The pinkette glared at the swordswoman, annoyed by her laughing voice. Kohta resisted the urge to reach out and cup her chin, to bring it down for a kiss. "You will be helping bolster Novac's defenses. Kohta-kun will take Boone-san's place in the dinosaur's mouth, and will defend the town from there. You, Takeshi-kun, and Rei-chan will first work to learn the local dialect, and then will assist in the salvage operations at the test site. Saya-chan, if you could put your genius to work, it would be a great point of honor to restore machinery to a functioning state! Meanwhile, Shizuka will assist the local doctor, and Alice will learn whatever she can in town, as well as interpret."

It was at that point that the disagreements began in earnest. Saya, no mechanic, insisted that she had no idea about how to fix any "stupid piece of scrap" the scavengers dragged back. Shizuka didn't want to work with the doctor; Strauss was, apparently, "Scary! She's got crazy eyes!" Kohta wondered aloud if Saeko and Min had bothered to ask anyone in town about their willingness to accept a new "family" in their village. Takeshi, who had just returned from the dinosaur, promptly turned around and left to fetch Cliff Barscoe, studiously avoiding Saeko as he did so. Rei, interestingly, spoke up in affirmation of Saeko's intent to travel with Min, though Kohta suspected by the smirk on her face that her motives were less than honorable. Barscoe, when he arrived, began to dicker with Takeshi and Kohta about housing in the motel that he'd suddenly and unexpectedly inherited from the mysteriously deceased Jeanie May, as well as the cost of provisions, and what Kohta would be paid for his guard duty.

Finally breaking away from Mr. Barscoe after reaching an agreement, where Kohta would assume Boone's old hours in exchange for free room and board in the motel, but he'd have to buy his own ammunition, Kohta sought out Saya and Alice. While reaching down to rub Alice on the head, Kohta stutteringly asked his angel whether she'd be willing to room with him. True to form, Saya had blushed and shouted at him, before running off. Kohta wasn't concerned; after the last week, he'd begun to realize that all of her self-righteous rage was naught but a cover for a confused and somewhat naïve young woman trying to come to terms with the world. Kohta didn't chase after her, but resolved to leave his door unlocked.

Dragging his attention away from the retreating back of his angel and the smaller angel who had wandered off to kick a tin can down the decaying sidewalk, Kohta turned back to the bickering collection of small groups. Takeshi and Rei were off to one side, both blushing furiously. Shizuka was talking to the newly arrived Doc Straus and her bodyguards, who seemed surprised at the seemingly boundless supply of energy the encumbered blonde was pouring forth. Cliff had returned to his store, a look of amusement on his face, along with a trace of annoyance, probably due to the bickering of the newest inhabitants of Novac. Alice continued to play with pieces of garbage, laughing with delight as she amused herself. Smiling at Takeshi and Rei as they awkwardly spoke about yesterday's events and Rei's injuries while trying not to stare too brazenly at one another, Kohta looked around for Boone, only to find a distinct lack of red beret-wearing snipers in the courtyard. At first thinking Boone had just gone to complete some unknowable chore, Kohta looked around for Min, only to discover that the Courier was similarly absent, as was Saeko.

An hour and a half later and five miles north of Novac, the bearded traveling merchant who had run into Kohta on his way out of Novac writhed on the cracked asphalt next to his gutted pack brahmin. Try as he might, his shaking hands just couldn't pull the short spear that pinned him to the wretched sod out of his abdomen. Dispassionately watching his struggles for a moment, a vexillarius and a pair of recruit legionnaires paused for a moment, before rejoining the column of legionmen, who resumed their brisk jog southwards, towards the profligate town of Novac.

Near the Gibson Scrapyard, Min smiled as she took a small sip of water from the battered canteen she'd bought from the Dino-De-Lite gift shop. It had been amusing to watch Saeko manufacture an argument, before leaving in the confusion.

The swordswoman walked beside the Courier, her long purple hair hidden under the battered grey cap she'd bought from Cliff Barscoe back in Novac, her stained school uniform traded out in favor of a battered set of leather armor Min had looted from a Jackel a week earlier, intending to use it for spare parts. In addition to her sword, Saeko also had a backpack courtesy of Boone, which was filled with bottles of purified water, edible plants, and dried meat.

In front of the two women, Boone scanned the wastes, searching for any enemy, while keeping a special eye out for crimson splotches on the horizon. So far, he'd seen nothing, but he wasn't leaving anything up to chance. The Courier might be worth something in a fight, and her strange comrade had some potential as a close-quarters combatant, but neither understood the joys of long-distance killing like the ex-Recon sniper. He knew the Legion were out there somewhere, and when they came, he'd be ready.

Near Cottonwood Cove, Anders hung from a cross made of phone poles, and bitterly cursed Jack, Diane, the Great Khans, and the Legion with his last breaths. Blood trickled down the cross from his back, wrists and anus, staining the splintery wood a reddish brown. Stripped of clothes and skin, the merciless sun beat down on the Khan's exposed skin, slowly cooking the trapped flesh. The splinters from the cross forced themselves deeper with every breath into a back already flayed by a razor-wire whip. The rough spike jammed deep into his rectum forced its way in further with each inch of elevation Anders lost, as the weight of his body pulled against the rough hempen rope that bound his wrists and feet to the cross. Most of the skin beneath the ropes was long gone, chafed away, leaving bloody rings around his appendages. Scattered around his feet was the drug shipment he'd accepted from Diane and tried to smuggle into Arizona, an indictment of his guilt, and a symbol of the Legion's justice.


End file.
